Traveling the World One Day at a Time

Endless To Do Lists

December 13, 2010

After almost four months without a word from me, it's time to answer those gentle nudges of "Where are you?" What's going on with your blog?" I've been getting.

First, again, thank you for asking. I am grateful and, as they say, humbled that not only do people actually read this little red thing of mine, but even notice when it's gone.

But it needed to be. It has become abundantly clear that I needed to focus on my non-blog life.

The Catalyst

Or should I say catalysts, because it's rarely just one thing that causes change in our lives.

This past July while in New York, we learned from a friend of ours in Bocas del Toro that our old landlord Cher, a really lovely woman, had been murdered. By a serial killer. It almost sounds like a joke, but clearly, it's not funny. Not in the least.

Then, when I got back to Argentina after Burning Man, I learned that another friend of ours from Salta, Diego, had also been murdered. I don't really understand what happened. Apart from some vague intimations about it being a gay-related crime, that the murderer was an exotic dancer.... Quite frankly, that's when I stopped listening. Those details aren't the core of the matter. It is more that a really decent person is now dead for no reason at all.

It really fucks with a girl's head, you know?

I Wanted To Blog, I Really Did But...

I stopped writing soon after I heard about Cher's murder. Since then, the idea of writing about what was going on in my head just felt wrong, but to write about something else seemed forced and a waste of my time. I’d rather paint with Lila or hang with Noah or do something altogether different.

So that's what I did.

I Don't Want To Be Too Late For What's Most Important

With all the traveling, running around, trying to develop programs, meeting people and posting, I felt I never had time for anything. My life too often felt like a massive unfinished to-do list and I was always working to reach a constantly moving horizon.

If I continued like that, I would miss out on my real world. So I had to let go of the online world for a while.

My hits were at an all time high when I stopped writing, and I’ve watched them fall, fall fall, as well as watched how my connections with many of the people I know online have faded. That has been hard to see.

But I had intended give Diego a call and get together sometime, soon. By the time I got around to it, I was too late. I don't want to say the same about Lila or Noah or the other people who are most important to me. I want to be truly present in their lives and mine.

Making A Commitment To Real Life & Community

This week, Noah and I will sign the papers to buy a house here in Salta. It will be our home, yes, but it will also be a community center for traveling artists, writers and teachers. (And will be filmed for an upcoming episode of House Hunters International. We're even flying to NY in February to do some filming there.)

So far, we’ve formed connections with local universities and non-profit organizations. We plan to use the internet and social media as a tool to connect students between countries, allowing them to share their work with each other as well as with bring in international artists, writers and photographers, travelers and educators.

The goal of our program, though, goes beyond a creative exchange to an initiative to teach English, keep students in school and ultimately improve their economic prospects by connecting them with an international community.

We just finished our first semester working with 12 year olds at the experimental high school that is a part of the Universidad Nacional de Salta (la UNSa). Next year, we’ll work with the same group of students, incorporate online and gallery exhibitions of art and photography and are working to begin teaching at the two local universities of Salta.

Does This Mean We Will Be In Salta Forever?

It is unsettling to think of being settled. It is overwhelming, too, to commit to one place after being on the move for almost five years.

The underlying assumption of our program is that since it is based on the people, the needs and the soul of Salta, it will not need us permanently to continue growing. We are here until our work here is finished;then we will move on.

Paper Mache Butterfly Wings and Walks By the River

Along the way of designing the project, I stopped to design paper mache butterfly wings with Lila. We picked dandelions by the side of the river flowing near our house. I stepped away from the to-do long enough to start weekly belly dancing classes with a really fabulous teacher. Someone who will be teaching as part of our community center.

And maybe, just maybe, I've learned a bit to accept that the most important thing I want to realize in this life of mine is how to be patient and not be too attached to any one outcome, because the bottom line is you never know what happens next.

May 17, 2010

I wrote this post already. I wrote it on Saturday night, and
it was a doozy of a post. One of those great posts that just slips from my
fingers to paper like water. It was well written, poignant and said everything
I wanted to say in just the way I wanted to say it.

Then when I go to copy and paste the text into Typepad this
morning so I can publish it as a blog post, the article disappears. Totally
gone. It’s not in previous documents. I didn’t save it online. It’s just gone.

Enter frustration and anger.

I kick myself for not making sure to save it carefully. All the
other documents I had open when I wrote it are still there. This one Very Important Post? Not there. Who has time to write the same article twice?

The post I
wrote was all about forging order and balance in a world that will never be
truly under control, and the irony of such doesn't escape me.

It all started Saturday night as I was catching up on blog
reading. I have a section in my Google Reader called Inspirational Blogs. It’s
not that they are the blogs from which I draw my greatest inspiration as
such, but more a description of a type of blog genre.

It’s not that I don’t find value in posts such as these.
Websites like Leo Barbauta’s Zen Habits and Chris Gillebeau’s The Art of
Nonconformity are fabulous.You’ll
always find great information to help you reorganize, order and breath through
difficult spots.

What frustrates me about them is they give the impression
that the writers of those articles are always under control of everything in
their lives. From what I read, I’d believe they exercise every day, meditate,
do yoga, finish their work, get the best deals on all flights. Their kids never
whine. Their meals, always balanced and their inboxes always empty.

Not me. Not even close.

I have four different mailboxes. Couchsurfing. Google for
Matador. One I use for The Future Is Red and then another mailbox I use for e-mail
subscriptions. Let's also not forget Facebook and Skype. Each is teeming full.

I remember reading on Tim Ferris’ website how the number one
rule of keeping order in your e-mail box is never use it as a file cabinet. All
of mine are file cabinets.

Me? I have a to do list a mile long and I probably spend
more time than I should searching for things I should have put away where they
were supposed to go. Only I wasn’t really sure where they were supposed to go
because my to do list has so many variables, each item would go in a
place of its own, which doesn’t really organize anything. It only forces me to
add Organize Files to my to do list.

Perhaps there are many people who are able to find that
serene sense of order thateludes me. I
have simply come to the conclusion that I must accept the chaos and learn to
exist with it.

Thus, I have developed My Own Personal Rules of Dealing With Chaos & Imperfection.

1. There will always be more to do. 2. It will all eventually get done.3. That which doesn’t get done, probably didn’t need to be done
in the first place.4. If I forget something, it won’t matter too much.5. If it does matter a lot, I will deal with it.

Today, Noah took Lila to school only to find today she
has no school which made having our regular Monday morning meeting over Skype
with an education consultant in NY difficult. So we set Lila up in our bedroom
with a movie – proving exactly how fantastic Mr Fox can actually be. Then the
dog starts barking halfway through. Lila sweetly lets him in the house when she
comes into the kitchen to pour herself another bowl of cornflakes.

I put him on my lap in an attempt to calm him down. It doesn’t
work. Then our internet gets fuzzy.

Meeting ends early because of all the noise and our internet
line goes completely down. The dog, somehow miraculously shits on the floor in
the five minutes he was in the house even though he was on my lap most of the
time. I revive the internet and go to publish my amazing article written
Saturday night only to find it has disappeared.

Bottom line, no matter how much I get under control, I will
never be able to get my head around everything. There will always be something
that goes beyond my capacity.

But it is not the end of the world, and I am not perfect.

And that is fine with me.

P.S. If I ever do find my first, wonderfully perfect article, I'll be sure to post it here.

November 25, 2009

Please excuse my appearance, but I’m completely off balance
these days. I thought I had it all together, thought I finally had a grasp
on things but no. My proverbial plate is too full. I’m not quite sure how it filled so quickly
and now the damn thing has overflowed.

Life on the road can be stressful, mainly because you never
quite know what will happen next, but life in one place? Turns out the switch between traveler and
expat hit me much harder than I could have expected. Now we have a lease on a house, Lila’s in
school, and we have work. We are committed. In some ways, that’s really lovely, something I found myself dearly craving after so long without a place to call home.

Of course, I’ve been so busy trying to settle in, work, get
the house cleaned and liveable, find my way around, meet people, locate doctors
for the family, I haven’t written back. I’m pulled in so many directions I don’t even
know where to go first.

It’s also my first so-called real job since before Lila was
born. The pace is wicked fast, and I too often feel I’m struggling to keep up.
I now have daily deadlines and people who will ask questions if they are not
met. In many ways, Matador pulls me back into the
I-need-it-all-and-I-need-it-now world I wanted to escape when we chose to leave
New York.

Thus my life feels like triage. I run from one line of my
to-do list to the next, never quite paying complete attention to anything and
never finding time to properly rest. Ironic, I think, given that what I write
for Matador is all about finding balance and thriving when you’re not on vacation. On the job training, I suppose.

So Why Is This and What Can We Do?

As I’ve struggled with all this, I’ve come up with four
different reasons why life balance -- too often happiness as well -- eludes us.

We’re searching for something missing in our lives.

This is how I felt when living in NYC. Not at first, mind
you. The city challenged me, but after ten years there, I no longer enjoyed it the choices I'd made for my life. I felt stuck, angry, uncomfortable. I just wanted to be free.

We spent the last three years searching and have since found
ourselves in a wonderful new city, where the people are perhaps the kindest,
most helpful and most decent I have ever met. My work is going well. Lila is
happy with school and friends. Noah and I have new projects on the horizon, and
all seems well.

I have everything I could want, so why so unhappy little
bear?

We're adjusting to something new.

I recently saw Facebook status update from Paulo Coelho
saying: Change is part of life. Friction is part of change. Get used to it.

Yes, change is a part of life, and often the good, happy
sort takes as much adjustment as the really hard painful kind. Perhaps the key
is to simply, as Coelho suggests, accept it. Let it just exist and eventually,
friction wears down to comfort again.

We Need Something New

So it stands to reason, that if change is a normal healthy
part oflife, if you’re not changing, you’re stagnating and thus will feel
friction from that as well. Sort of can’t win on the happiness train, can you?
Then again, it’s not really so much about winning as it is realizing that life
is a cycle of constant movement.

This is different from my first point in that you can have everything you want in your life, nothing is missing, but you are searching for change. Many times, you simply need to shake things up before going back to your life as it was.

We Always Want More, More, More

You’re thinking of the future and past, what you used to
have, what you hope to have. You look at your life, house, career, spouse
andfriends seeing what isn’t there,
what could be, what used to be. Worst of all, when you turn this eye on yourself, the criticism will be the most harsh.

While happiness isn't something we can expect to have every moment
of every day of our lives, at times sadness is necessary, this sort of
thinking will leave us permanently dissatisfied. Unless you break away from this cycle, you’ll never find those crucial moments
of rest and happiness.

So Where Do I Go From Here?

I sit here at home typing with a gentle breeze blowing
through the kitchen, birds of all ilk chirping and still I wonder to why I can't shake this feeling. I don't feel myself anymore.

Then I realize, perhaps it is not that I am somehow not myself. Instead, there is a part of me that will always remain off balance until I make the clear choice to shift my thinking.

"How?" you may wonder. Well, first step is recognizing why you feel the way you do. Then you can start making a change.

DISCUSSION POINT: Where are you in the spectrum I describe here? And what do you do to make changes in your life? Or maybe you're one of the few, the proud, the content to be where they are. Perhaps you have some tips to share with the rest of us.

March 17, 2009

We´re finally coming out of 2 weeks of being sick, and life has been something of a triage. The things that need to be done are done first: doctor visits, Lila´s needs and food. Everything else waits.

And since we´ve been sick, my blogging has most definitely suffered. I haven´t had much time at all to write, compose notes or follow up on comments and e-mail. Every time I leave the house, I see and experience things that make me think, ¨Wow, that would be great for a blog entry!¨

But for now, they must wait.

It highlights for me something I´ve often wondered. How do you live in the moment when you´re thinking about blogging it? When you turn a life event into a blog entry, you think about your life from an outside perspective. How will others see this? How can I recreate this, my own life experience, so that someone else can read and relate? Even stopping to take pictures becomes an action of ending your own moment in order to capture it.

It´s the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle applied to your life. You cannot both do what you are doing and plan where you are going at the very same time without the experience of one or the other drastically changing.

So how do I seek balance?

I keep a list of Future Blog Posts. When I have an idea, I immediately write it down and then forget about it until I´m ready to sit and write it. I do the same with the Things I Need To Do. It is surprising how well this works. Somehow, the simple act of writing down removes the nagging action from my head.

I force myself to take full days during which I entirely put aside my computer, Blackberry, To-Do-Lists, journal and camera and just live the day. It´s really hard! Too often I think how much I´d like to Twitter something, and my mind is too often on more than one thing at once. Even as I write this post, I´m thinking how I´d like to post a picture I saw of Noel Gallagher and make some sort of witty comment about Cigarettes and Alcohol.

Meditation & Yoga. I often talk about yoga, but meditation is something I don´t think about nearly enough. My favorite place for meditation is somewhere completely alone in a darkened room with a lit candle. I focus on the flame while I clear my mind. Focus on my breathing and one by one remove the thoughts from my head, because they are not important.

Oh, I need to reply to @blumimsy about writing. Set that aside for now.

I want to order a nightlight from@fogandthistle for Lila. Our friend Jen is coming to visit and I want it sent to her in time for her to bring it. Oh, yes!! Jen is coming to visit. She´ll be here in less than two weeks. I can´t wait to see her. What time do I have to pick her up from the airport, again?

Stop! Set aside each of these thoughts one by one, because again, the list is endless. I repeat. It is endless. Were I to start working now, contacting, writing and posting, I would never, ever finish. So the quest to finish is futile, is it not?

Of course, it is far easier to write about these things than to actually implement them, so I´m curious to know what others do in order to find their balance

February 27, 2009

Sometimes, you´ll find yourself stuck and will have to pay by the night. There are always cheap options for this as well.

I have not yet visited a continent where you cannot find a hostel, although if you arrive too late in the day or during a particularly busy time -- such as Carnival in Central or South America -- you´ll be forced to turn to either camping out or a more expensive choice.

In France, Italy, Holland and just about every where else we stayed in Europe, we found we could trust in the quality of the places recommended by tourist offices, even if the prices seemed too good to be true. The owners are also willing to negotiate their prices if they have an empty room and someone in tourist information will do the negotiation for you. That's how we ended up at both La Beliere in Moustiers Sainte-Marie and La Matabone of Lourges. They were both new and thus empty at the height of tourist season. Both, I will add, were a bit out of the main tourist drag.

Wherever you are, don't be afraid to negotiate even if you're not fluent in the language. If nothing else, the negotiation gives you practice.

There's also the Etap chain - the cheapest of the Accor group of hotels found all over Europe. Cheap stay per night, includes breakfast, not luxury, but not bad at all, and you can usually get a room at the very last minute. Etap saved us from sleeping on the street more than one night.Seek out advice from every possible place!

I consider this perhaps the most important thing you need to do. Start right now!

When we first decided to travel, we noticed that everyone and his mother had advice for us. We also found that many friends, family and even strangers had offers of places to stay, contacts in certain cities, and endless local insider information. It can be overwhelming and at times even unwanted.

Listen anyway.

Someone might mention a job or place to stay for free. Having contacts can also help you immeasurably if you show up somewhere looking for work. As an example: When we first discussed traveling to Buenos Aires -- approximately nine months before we finally arrived in Argentina -- Noah contacted an old professor of his from City College who we knew had contacts in South America. He ultimately connected us to the place we´re now staying and working in Salta. It was a slow process, but now that we´re here, we have community in Salta who has helped us immeasurably.

I keep a Word -- or whatever text editor you use -- file on my desktop where I type down any and all information people give me. I make sure to include the name of the country or city along with whatever information I´ve been given. I don´t worry too much about order or neatness. When I want to find something, I simply do a search in the file for the country or place name.

Talk to other travelers. In most places, there is a circuit. Wherever you are, there will be a stream of people coming from all directions and destinations. You ask them all about how busy things are, how cheap, what’s the best way to get around, good places to stay, then plan your next step accordingly.Otherwise, I would never have known that the guy selling chicken sandwiches out of a trailer on the main street in Bocas serves one of the best chicken sandwiches I've ever had (always get the Jumbo with piquante and cheese.) Or that when everyone thought Bocas had been destroyed by earthquakes and flooding, I was able to let a friend of mine who leads GAP tours know that Bocas was indeed fine and open for business.

Again, Couchsurfing is a wonderful source of this sort of travel tips. As are TripAdvisor, Matador Travel, Twitter and Yahoo Groups (although with Yahoo, the personal profiles are more limited, so you don't have as much on which to judge the person giving advice). On all, you can contact people directly or post in a larger group.

Are you a musician, a dancer, a performer of any kind? Do you want to be? While perhaps this is a bad idea in places like Atlanta or New York, where street performing and vending are discouraged, there are plenty places in this world who not only tolerate but encourage busking.

You will be amazed at how open and giving people can be. Friends, family and perfect strangers have freely given advice, clothing, contacts, a place to stay or a meal. I, myself, try to be as giving. When we have a place of our own, we open our home, our table and our things for others.

My openness, however, has boundaries. There are always those who will take advantage, so you have to read, research and know what how much your willing to pay or give before agreeing to anything. That said, people have overwhelmingly helpful. We have had only one less than stellar experience, and that only involved the loss of some snorkel equipment and a towel.

Also remember that no one owes you anything, no matter what they promise. Don't bother getting yourself all worked up when someone offers help then doesn't deliver. Instead, be patient, focus on those people who do come through and then move on.

I suppose that´s exactly what I mean when I say we´re traveling one day at a time. Each day brings new surprises, enchantments and yes, even disappointments. You take them as they come. It´s character building, and that, I believe is the very crux of traveling.

October 06, 2008

It's the paradox of the move that does it. We're in one place but moving. Lila and I are baking cookies tomorrow for her teachers. Noah's picking up a package at DHL. It's our first day of dogsitting Cosby (who seems rather irate these days, although I'm mostly sure he wasn't offended by my last post.)

Everything slows down the week before we move. We don't go out as much. Don't see as much, and we don't seem to get as much done. Yet the days slip and slide forward so fast I don't know Monday from Friday. I suppose it's something like turning a corner. You're slowing down, slowing down, but really speeding up at the same time.

Does this make any sense at all?

I didn't make it to yoga and the abortion protest this week bc we went to Toronto again to see family. This coming weekend will be my last chance. I haven't started Lila's Halloween costume. We didn't go to Maid of the Mist or Cave of the Winds.

Between now and Monday morning, I plan to go through all our stuff, pick something up from DHL, launder and iron the cloth for Lila's costume, make cookies for Lila's teachers, give a donation to a couple charities around here, do laundry, mail some stuff back to Atlanta because it won't all fit in the car and plan the trip down to Atlanta. Also, go to four yoga classes so I can use up the rest of my ten-class pass (unless someone else wants it. If so, let me know. I'd be happy to ask Darcy if she'll transfer it to someone else), take pictures of the protesters. I have a list of questions in my head for them. Should probably write them down but whenever I try, I forget them.

Blah blah blah. Have you noticed that between moves I list all the things to do, to go, to be?

I've noticed. It's tedious as hell, but it's what in my head now. It's my process, so now those of you who have asked how we do this, this is it. To do lists and you just don't think about it too much more. You really can't think too much about it, because if you do, it's becomes more difficult to reach the ends of those lists.

Have I mentioned preparing Lila to go. We've already started the goodbyes, returned our library books, barbequed with the in-laws one last time. We go through our clothes and decide what to pack. Begin to talk about what we'll do next week, the week after, where we're going, who we'll see.

All this before Monday morning, when we start the decent from Move to Road Trip to Month in Atlanta to Deal with Last Details of Argentina to ARGENTINA.

It is evitable. A ball rolling down hill, and yet I still feel like I'm on the steep uphill of the next leg the journey.

August 25, 2007

This morning I got up early and went out to do yoga on one of the enormous rocks that make up the beach in Riomaggiore. It was beautiful, amazing. Just me, the rocks and sound of the waves.

That's when it hit me. I didn't want to leave. I wanted more yoga mornings alone on the beach. More time to explore the area. More evenings walks by the water with my husband and child. More.

Then I pulled out of this swirl of thought and back into my yoga. That's the thing about practicing yoga. It is all about experiencing the moment and letting go of past and future.

Allan Watts, reknown Taoist scholar says that it is the person who lives for the future who is truly lost. The past is gone, but at least it once existed. The present is ours. It is all we really have. There is nothing in the future but what could be. While there can be great hope for the future, it is not real. To count on it is to chase shadows.

As I sat there in lotus, I pulled myself back from worrying about whether it is a mistake to go back to France instead of remaining in this place I love so much. Pulled myself back from wishing we had come here earlier so we could have had more time.

The sea spread out all around me and aside from the waves and early morning sun burning the previous night's fog, all was quiet and airy.

So I am thankful that we are lucky enough to have had our days in this place, for my two hours of the most perfect yoga ever. Thankful that we have found a place to which we want to return, maybe for a while, maybe forever. Who knows? It doesn't really matter anyway. That is for the future and wasn't this trip always supposed to be about traveling the world one day at a time?